We Made These Memories For Ourselves
by hushedgreylily
Summary: A box of photographs, in the end, is all that's left. Oneshot. BB.


**WE MADE THESE MEMORIES FOR OURSELVES**

 **A box of photographs, in the end, is all that's left.**

 **I haven't written Bones in so long. 6 years plus, in fact, and if you'd told me when I was writing it that they were going to be married with two children the next time I picked up my (figurative) Bones fanfiction pen, I'd have laughed. But here we are. Sorry it's been so long.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

 **Spoilers for anything that's aired at the time of posting.**

All the most important photographs are in one box. One small, slightly orange shoebox that seems to be fraying slightly round the edges.

Alice's mom and dad have cleared everything out of the loft – ready for the move to Richmond next week, for Daddy's promotion. That's how she happened upon that box in the spare bedroom upstairs, and ever the inquisitive child, she takes a look inside.

She's assaulted by what seems like a thousand old photographs she's never seen before. They look something like they were taken in some sort of magic land, all the smiling people in them are wearing very odd clothes, and are not at all familiar. She flips the first photo – a lovely one of a man and woman with glasses of champagne in their hands, smiling at one another, dressed like they're going to a very posh party – hoping maybe there's a caption telling her who she's looking at.

She figures her Mommy would probably be very proud she can read the writing on the back, even though it isn't very neat. She frowns slightly. It says _Booth and Brennan, Christmas Ball 2005._ 2005 was a very long time ago, but her surname's Booth, so she figures maybe it's one of her distant ancestors. The more she looks at the smiling man in the picture, however, the more familiar that smile seems. Holding the whole box gently between tiny fingers, she skips downstairs.

Her Grandad is the only one in the living room, and he is the oldest person she knows _by far_ , so she guesses he's probably the one most likely to remember the olden days. She half-tiptoes over to him, trying to gauge whether or not he's asleep – one eye opens and his face breaks into a broad smile.

"Who's this?" she asks outright, holding the picture up, getting ready to climb onto his knee. But she stops, suddenly, feeling something almost inexplicable, reading something near enough alien in his eyes.

There's a long silence, and for a moment she wonders if her grandad has fallen asleep now, despite having his eyes open, because he isn't moving, just staring at the picture. She doesn't like it, it makes her uneasy.

"Grandad?" she tries again, gently, and her voice comes out sounding small and nervous. He seems to catch his breath, then, and his smile somehow saddens.

"That's me and your Grandma Bones." He sighs slightly, "A very very long time ago."

She frowns at the picture, realising she recognises the smile because she's seen it before – has known it her whole life. But the picture looks so old she can't quite believe it.

"Are you sure?" she sounds more suspicious than she'll ever know. He laughs.

"I'm sure. It was the Christmas party the first year we worked together… Bones wore that dress…" for a moment, he seems caught in the memory, staring out of the window almost wistfully. He seems to gather himself, however, and turns himself back to his granddaughter. "Do you remember Grandma Bones?"

She looks like she's apologising. "Not really. Max talks about her lots though. And Daddy. And I've seen lots of pictures. But no pictures where she's all pretty, like this one, and all the ones in the box. Only when she was Grandma."

He chuckles. "She was always beautiful, Alice. Beauty changes. But there's lots in the box. Let's have a look."

She climbs onto his knee, with the box between her hands. It's not very heavy. He muses, momentarily, that it seems very little for a lifetime of memories. All they've come to is a box of photographs.

Alice pulls out the first few photographs and it's like he's glancing into someone else's life. Those years feel so distant they're almost out of reach, after everything that followed. Years of hidden glances, what he felt were hopeless wishes, potential futures that he couldn't ever imagine really happening.

"These are when Grandma Bones and I just worked together… before we fell in love... that's when we went undercover in Las Vegas, this is Christmas one year at her apartment, they're all the interns she had back then…" he only takes a second to glance at Vincent Nigel Murray's face. _What a waste,_ he still thinks, even more than fifty years later, but it was probably the catalyst for everything that came afterwards. _Funny how the world turns out._

"Is that even before Daddy was born?" Alice asks, eyes wide, as if the idea of something happening that long ago is near enough impossible to grasp.

He smiles. "Long before Daddy was born. Before Auntie Christine was born, and Uncle Michael."

"That's a really long time ago." The little girl declares, earning another laugh. "Who's that baby?" she turns to a picture of an exhausted looking Angela and an exuberant looking Hodgins, a newborn Michael Vincent in their arms, surrounded by himself and everyone from the Jeffersonian.

"That's your Uncle Michael. The day he was born."

Something not dissimilar to horror passes over the girl's face. "What, like Uncle Michael who's married to Auntie Christine? Max and Jack's dad?"

"The very same."

"So is that… that's Auntie Angela… but that can't be Uncle Jack… everyone always told me Uncle Jack was in a wheelchair."

He sighs. That tragedy still cuts deep. And it's not something easy to explain to an inquisitive seven year old. "He was in a wheelchair for a very long time. But not always. Something bad happened to him, and after that he had to be in a wheelchair."

Alice cocks her head to one side, as if considering, but seems to decide her grandfather's explanation is enough for now. She picks up another handful of photos. The next almost bring a tear to his eyes. He's got his arms around Bones' shoulders, and the look on both their faces takes his breath away – she wasn't showing yet, it was only weeks after she told him she was expecting Christine, but it was the first time in his life he hadn't had to conceal how he felt, and the joy in his eyes reflects that.

His smile widens.

"That's when Grandma Bones was expecting Auntie Christine."

Again, Alice looks suspicious. "She doesn't look like she's expecting a baby."

"When ladies are first expecting a baby, they don't have very big bellies yet."

"Oh." His granddaughter looks like she's not sure if she believes him, but she doesn't contest him any further. "You both look really happy. You must have been excited to have Auntie Christine. Is that why you had Daddy and Uncle Jared afterwards?"

 _From the mouths of babes._ But, really, it couldn't have been put any simpler.

"Something like that, yeah. But that time – when we'd just found out about Auntie Christine – that was the start of everything."

"How do you mean?"

"That was when Grandma Bones and I started being… started being _us._ We were looking forward to being a Mommy and a Daddy, and then we got married, and then eventually we were Grandma Bones and Grandad. After that picture, we had a good time together for near enough fifty years."

There's a picture of the newborn Christine, which Alice refuses to believe could possibly be her aunt, and then there's a picture that makes her grandfather swallow. Bones with dyed blonde hair, and an infant Christine on her lap. He remembers receiving that photo from Max when his two girls were on the run – it's something of a strange photograph to have alongside all the wonderful memories, but it was an important time, a time they worked through, so it has as much right to be there.

"I don't like Grandma Bones' hair there very much."

Another chuckle. "No… that was only for a short time. It sorted itself out soon after."

There's something of a double meaning there, but he turns to the next picture. In all the years they had, that was such a tiny portion it isn't worth dwelling on. In the next picture, they're in each other's arms, and Bones is wearing a long white dress, her forehead against his. He thinks it must be the first dance after the wedding, that looks like a dancefloor.

"Is that where you got married?"

He takes a moment to clear his throat. "That was one of the happiest days of my life."

"Grandma Bones looks really beautiful there."

"That she does." He smiles, "… and that's-" he trails off at the next picture. It's of a little Christine in Sweet's arms. He swallows.

"Are you alright, Grandad?"

"That man's Seeley's dad. He died not so long after that. He was one of my best friends. He's the reason your dad's middle name is Lance. We named your father after two of the greatest men I knew, Lance Sweets and my own grandfather."

"That's sad."

He forces a smile and strokes the little girl's hair. "It was very sad, then. But Sweets has been looking down this whole time since, and he's been watching Daisy and Seeley, and all my family, and he's probably very impressed. He's probably telling Grandma Bones right now how wonderful all our grandchildren are. He's particularly impressed with you."

Alice looks in awe. "With me?"

Her grandfather nods. "With you. You ask a lot of questions. Sweets never stopped asking questions."

The little girl looks as grateful as if she'd just received the Nobel Prize. She turns to the next photo.

"Is that my daddy?" she asks, staring in wide-eyed wonderment at the little baby in the young man she now knows is her grandfather's arms, with a young Christine next to him, staring up in a similar awe at the baby.

"It certainly is." He smiles, handing Alice the next few photos of her father in his early years, and then another baby, a couple of years later. "And that's Uncle Jared."

She frowns at the photo. "Uncle Jared was an ugly baby." She utters, with the brutal honesty only children can get away with. That invokes another laugh.

"Uncle Jared was five weeks early. They look a bit scrunched up like that when they're early."

The next picture's all three children, all three still quite small, sat with an elderly Max.

"That was the first Max. That was Grandma Bones' daddy."

"He must have been really old." Alice says, with a tone implying some self-belief in her wisdom. "Because my daddy's quite old, and that man is old there…"

The next few pictures are throughout their childhoods, and Alice is particularly fascinated by Jared's ice hockey pictures. There are three pictures paper-clipped together at the bottom of the box.

"These are the three days I was the proudest of your dad, Auntie Christine and Uncle Jared. That's the day Auntie Christine graduated a qualified doctor-"

"What's graduated?"

He smiles. "It's like when she finished school. When she started being a doctor for babies."

"Oh. She looks old when she finished school. Max says he's going to finish next year and he doesn't look that old…"

"It's a bigger school where you go and learn to be a doctor, if you want to be a doctor. Your Auntie Christine chose to go there. Once you leave school like Max will, soon, you decide what you want to be and you go and learn how to do it. Look, that's your daddy in his uniform… because he wanted to be a soldier, so he went to learn to be a soldier…"

"And now he's going to teach people how to be a soldier. Which Mommy's very happy about because she says he's much less likely to get blown up in Virginia."

A quiet smile. "Being a soldier's dangerous. I was both the proudest I've ever been and the most terrified I've ever been when your daddy told me he wanted to join the Army. I was a soldier, once."

Alice laughs. "Don't be silly, Grandad. You're far too old to be in the army. Daddy says _he_ 's getting too old. They wouldn't want you!"

A smile. "And that's your Uncle Jared, on his first day in the Metropolitan Police. When he used to wear a uniform and not tell everyone what to do."

The little girl giggled. "Sophie says he tells everyone what to do, and the only person who doesn't listen is Auntie Beth."

He chuckles again. "That sounds about right. She was the only one Jared ever listened to."

Alice leafs silently through the photos, drawing one out, eventually. "This one's my favourite." She announces with an air of importance, and when he looks at it, it's the first photo she found, the first Jeffersonian Christmas Ball, when Bones hadn't really even admitted she liked him.

"Why's that?"

"Because I think you loved Grandma Bones before you realised. You only smile that smile when you talk about Grandma Bones and how much you loved her. I think you loved her in this photo."

After a moment's stunned silence, her grandfather pulls her to him and presses his lips to the top of her head, letting the tears in his eyes clear for a moment. "You're a very clever girl, Alice. You keep working hard at your new school, and I think you could be as clever as your Grandma Bones. And she was the cleverest lady I've ever known."

Alice pulls back, a smile splitting her face. "I'm gonna miss you, Grandad."

He ruffles her hair. "Oh, don't be silly! You'll make loads of new friends, and anyway, you're not that far away. I'll see you for lots of weekends, when you come to stay with Uncle Jared and Auntie Beth and Sophie… you can take that photo with you, if you like. Your favourite."

Alice shakes her head. "You should keep that photo, Grandad. To remind you of Grandma Bones. But maybe don't put it in Uncle Jared's loft. Maybe keep it closer."

"I think I might keep all the photos out the loft. I haven't looked at them in too long." He sighs.

"And that's everything, is it? That's everything that happened to you and Grandma Bones?"

He smiles. "That's some really important bits of it. But there was so much more, there was every single day. Something happened every day."

She frowns. "But where are all the other things, then? Daddy's emptied the loft, there's nothing up there, and this is the only box with photos in it, I looked."

Booth smiles, musing that maybe he shouldn't have judged the box of photographs so quickly. Because it's not just a box of photographs. It's a doorway to a lifetime.

He taps the side of his head. "All the other things – they're in here. They're in the memories."

FIN

 **I really hope you enjoyed! I would love a review if you've got a minute!**


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